


Part 3: Lapse in Cruelty

by mantra4ia



Series: Bucky x Reader: Words are the Best Weapons [3]
Category: Bucky Barnes - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Bucky Barnes' Notebooks, Bucky x Reader, F/M, Fanfic, Gen, Marvel-verse - Freeform, Sass, Series, Slow Burn, Subtext, Work In Progress, imagine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:14:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8082727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mantra4ia/pseuds/mantra4ia
Summary: Chapter Snapshot: Tasked with the mission of rehabilitating Bucky Barnes, no one said it would be easy.One week after your first session with Barnes, progress is slow and backbreaking. You can sense that Bucky still doesn't trust you; whether it's your capability as a therapist or something more, you are not sure. But in order to thaw his reservations, in order to earn his trust, you have to give a little of your own. And it's the hardest thing you've had to do in quite some time.This is my original work. Please do not duplicate or reproduce.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Previously: CHAPTER 2- Bullets, then Cannonballs.  
> A rocky first meeting ends in two small victories: your office has been redecorated and you and Bucky are both in one piece after your first therapy session in close quarters. He might even buy into the fact that you know what you're doing, the one misconception you are willing to let him believe.

[Background music to score the chapter (optional)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK5hLV-UBtI)

“(Y-N), what did you mean before, when you wanted to stress the difference between dangerous and violent?” Bucky shot across the office as he wandered in at 4:15 for his 4 o'clock appointment. Mentally you made a note that lateness might be a character habit. 

“We'll, we've had enough word play between us so if I'm honest,  my aim was to discover how you view violence.”

“I don't understand.”

“At the risk of opening too many doors too quickly, I mean word association.” There was a tenseness coursing through Bucky now, and it was obvious why. Words were powerful, especially when they were intrinsically bound to something bigger. The words that brought him here had compelled Bucky to kill on behalf of HYDRA. If they were ever going to get to the root of that weed, it had to start here. “If I say violence, what words do you think of?”

“Mission”

“What next?” When Bucky didn't respond, you offered him some aid. “Violence...”

“Kill”

“Violence...”

“Harm”

“Violence...” and on and on this list continued, until Bucky's voice was too quiet to be discernible, and you handed him an empty notebook. Minutes later, after you observed him unhurriedly, he set down his pen and handed you that notebook, it's first page filled with seemingly disjointed words that came together only if a reader were aware Bucky had written them.

Dotted here and there across the page were triggers: _Hydra, torture, shock, skill, speed, mark, shot, pain, pursuit..._ none of these were particularly surprising words until about half way down the list names became interspersed. You didn't know what they were at first until one in particular stood out to you. _Maria_. As in Maria Stark. You knew then, and could not unlearn, that all the listed names had at one point been missions. And if that was surprising, what turned your insides cold were the adjectives between them. Each in some way describing details of his mission targets, not profane details the you might expect the Winter Soldier to notice, but beautiful details the Bucky would notice. You knew this because of how closely you had studied Bucky's files in the last week since his first session. Every spare waking moment had been devoted to Bucky's past and present, every mission for Hydra and against, and every casualty along the way. Some adjectives Bucky used to describe the color of their eyes, their style of dress, manner of speech, their laugh...the last to words on the page most debilitating of all. _Steve, friend._ Bucky was scarred by the fact that he had committed violence against his best friend. That was no closed fracture you were expected to mend. It was an open wound. You were beginning to wonder whether you were up to the task of Bucky's triage, but your self-doubt would not help him.

At last breaking your concentration from the list you were startled, not only by the fact that _you_ lost a sense of time, as Bucky had in your first session, but also that Bucky was staring at you relentless and unwavering, scrutinizing your emotions as you read. Had you betrayed a reaction? If so then it would shatter his trust to confide in you. You steeled the icy storm of thoughts and did something out of the ordinary. Instead of sitting opposite Bucky taking notes, you stepped across the room and sat next to him on the edge of his black leather seat. It afforded you two things that you needed to do your job well. A moment to recompose your face without direct scrutiny, and the proximity it would take to reach out and grasp Bucky's hand, which you did if just for a moment.

 You allowed Bucky a considerably long while in reflective silence to acclimate to your acquisition of the space nearest him. When he spoke again, his voice was clear and discernible, his eyes bright and glossy. “What do you associate with violence?”

“Well…” His question allowed you perspective. You were looking at the problem too closely, being overwhelmed by it. As your scope widened, it became clear that trying to help Bucky manage smaller wounds, one atrocity at a time, would not help him survive. At the devastating source of the injury, if you could help Bucky to feel in control of his own mind (and you believed you could) it would empower him to manage the other blows that HYDRA had dealt him when they unmade a man to make the Winter Soldier. “I believe that violence begins as the removal of choice,” Bucky was intent on your words, even if he did not fully agree with them. “Not simply one choice, but choices in succession. Until the target is left without a sense of agency.”

When it was clear that Bucky understood, but was not able to speak for a time, you continued.

“Many of the people who consult me, whether they’re patients or colleagues, have witnessed a cycle of violence that goes beyond physical harm. It comes down to a sense that the targeted person has had the ability to act, or the confidence to act, taken from them. Be it gradually or suddenly.” You paused, uncertain of how to continue. You knew your words were having an effect on Bucky, but what kind of effect was unclear. Everything today, by sharp contrast to the previous encounter when you had felt somehow able to steer Bucky by the hand, was happening now in subtle shifts behind his eyes. Like trying to grasp at his hand in the dark among a crush of people, you weren’t quite sure if you were gripping his hand or a phantom imitation. Carefully you continued. “Bucky, this page you wrote describes the things that you’ve done to others..."

"You can say it." Bucky said quietly staring straight ahead at the bookshelf.

"Missions - torture, interrogation, assassination..."

"Mass murder, civilian and otherwise," Bucky added in a tone of menacing calm. “I hurt people.”

"But what I want you to recognize is that the violence done to them is a direct result of what’s been done to you.”

It was as hard for you to go on as it was for him to listen, because Bucky felt as if his blame was being transferred, for which he had no patience or interest. “Don't you dare have sympathy for me. Don't mistake my absence of cruelty for kindness.” Bucky retorted, but you both continued to march deeper behind the line.

“Hear me, all of it, before you make up your mind. What you quoted, the absence of cruelty...we teach to the victims of serial abusers. But you are not an abuser, no more than I am a victim. How I propose to help, to use my experience, is to restore your agency from HYDRA (or anyone else who may attempt to make good on what they started). They may no longer hold you captive, but if you fear they hold power over your choice then the time to crush that grip begins today. It won’t undo the past of what you’ve done, and if you’re seeking absolution…”

“I’m not.” Bucky replied. However forceful and sudden it was, it comforted you to know he’d found his voice again, gave you a certain amount of courage to speak boldly.

“Good, because if you are looking for absolution from someone like me, you’ve got a larger challenge then even I can council you in.” At this the far left corner of Bucky’s mouth turned slightly up. “But I can give you the tools to use to overwrite what HYDRA has programmed you for. Perhaps, when you are ready, you can use those tools to help others find more choices than abusers can take from them.” 

His interest, tentative, was at the moment like watching the heckles of a wild animal slowly settle, terrifying and fascinating. "What do you mean, overwrite?"

“Perhaps overrule is more accurate. Mandatory compliance is so deeply written in you that the behavior will not go extinct. Not through the dormancy of cyrostasis, not through reward or punishment. But you can learn a new behavior, a new set of words. Ten phrases. Over time we can condition you to say and think them in times of mental strain, effectively negating HYDRA's control.”

At this Bucky's pessimism seems to distort and collapse rapidly into hostile cynicism, to the point that he cannot manage sitting near you. He gets up and paces slowly and deliberately in front of the bookshelf. Out of all the words he wants to say, “Unlikely” is all you get from him.

“Meaning?” You can't help but feel a little hostile in return at this setback, at his lack of trust in you.

“How many books on this shelf?”

“Over 300.”

“How many thoughts, how many memories in each do you think?”

“Thousands.”

“So even if on the off chance I could read all these books, more even, absorb hundreds of thousands of ideas in the course of a lifetime, how long do you think it would be before HYDRA could take every thought from me?” You were silent. You knew where this was heading, but he needed to work through the cause of his dread.

“An instant is all it would take to scramble thousands of thoughts, millions words. Ten don't stand a chance.” Bucky said in a long, degenerating sigh.

 “I understand your skepticism under the circumstances is probably the best I should hope for.” But you still needed to try. “However, I don't mean to imply that you should simply try to memorize ten feeble words or associate them with ideas that could be erased. This process goes farther.”

 Your thoughts ruminated over HYDRA's commands. _Тоска, ржавые, Семнадцать, рассвет, печь, Девять, доброкачественная, возвращение, один, Грузовой автомобиль. Longing, Rusted, Seventeen, Daybreak, Furnace, Nine, Benign, Homecoming, One, Freight car._ “What I'm saying Bucky, is that even for those of us who haven't endured what you have, memories are beautiful and flawed things. They change over time, they are influenced by others, and no two people recall a single factual event the same way. Memories are vital, but they are likewise treacherous.” Bucky's frustration had not abated, but at least had not grown worse. You picked up the journal Bucky had written in, and walked with it discretely tucked under your arm toward your standing desk to give Bucky more space contemplating the books. “But the mind is infinitely more complex than we will ever know. I say that, even in the face of advancing technology, for two reasons. Firstly because I am convinced that the more we discover and solve, the more complexities the brain will throw at us, if only to be obstinate. Not unlike yourself...” Bullet.

Bucky was shaken from his inner reverie just long enough for you to come to your genuine, most vital meaning. “And secondly because of a case study. As I recall, I watched a 'patient' of mine, a 93 year old man sinking quickly and heartrendingly into dementia. Extremely good health and wellness and fitness all his life, and yet he did not know his own name, where he was, or who he was surrounded by. He could not perform a single daily task of living without help, and was completely at the mercy of the fortunately kind caregivers around him. Surrounded yet alone, and nearly always anxious and afraid, even around me. _It was a cruel, hellish kind of violence that his own body was inflicting on him, the kind I hope you never experience Bucky.”_ Your voice struggled on. Good God let me get through this to the end. “On his last good day when I visited him in hospice, I brought an apple pie. Up until that point he was never allowed outside food, but the nursing staff at last conceded. This man was all nerves and terror as I sat before him. I cut a small silver of pie with a plastic spatula. I placed it on a plate with a plastic fork and spoon and set it up before him, knowing that he did not understand what either of the small oddly shaped instruments were for. I would have to use them to destroy the pie slice beyond recognition, into something safe to swallow, in order to feed him. Do you understand?” Bucky nodded gravely and approached the standing desk a fraction.

“But I set them there anyway, so that he had time to observe them and not fear them, just as I touched his arm first for several minutes before I attempted to place a cloth under his chin. I was about to begin helping him to eat when he became curious about the pie, and in turn I became curious about him. Like an infant he grabbed the slice in his hand as if you weigh and examine it. He brought it so close to his face that I thought he might try to eat it on his own, before I realized he was holding it closely to examine the crimped edge. Almost immediately the staff chided me that I should not let him do that.”

“And what did you say?” asked Bucky, arm folded across his chest, kneading at the tension at the base of his neck, becoming enthralled by the story in spite of himself.

“I told them to sush. He was 93 years old, he had lived a long, full life, enough to see more than any of them in the room combined regardless of whether he could remember or not. As long as he wasn't hurting anyone he could do whatever the hell he wanted whenever he felt like.” The tension in Bucky's shoulder began to ease as the tension in your body began to build from the soles of your feet to your lower back.

“And then?”

“The oddness to me was that he clearly wanted this pie, if he even recognized what it was, but it clearly wasn't for eating. So I cut a piece for myself and put it in my hand as he had done. When he started squishing the pie between his fingers, and cringes came from our audience, so did I. When the man saw what I did he smiled. In the process of squishing my piece, small bits of hard crust bounced on the plate with ringing porcelain sound. He gathered bits of his crust, and dropped from as much height as his arms could manage to make the same sound; he picked up the fork and spoon and made scraping noises against the scalloped edge of the plate, and placed the gooey stickiness of his hands so close to his nose that filling stuck there after he took a deep inward breath of the spicy smell.”

Bucky was so close to the desk now that his hip brushed the edge of it. The sun was setting past the window behind you, and the glow it cast on the surrounding walls, in contrast to harsh afternoon light that made nothing visible, bounced from every surface and spilled into what would have been the shadowed parts of your face making everything visible to him. You wished he would stop studying your face, looking for some sort of tell, but you continued.

“I did all this with him, a second shadow, at first because I so desperately wanted to understand him, but as it went on I was enjoyed it. The staff probably thought I should be admitted. But after this man had smelled the apple pie, a lost look again started to drown his face; he did not know what was supposed to come next but he had such _longing_ for it. So I took my hand, covered in pie, and pressed it over my mouth. When it came away from my face, a healthy portion of filling remained glued to my chin, and the man laughed.”

And involuntarily Bucky also laughed.

“So I took my pie hand and slowly raised it toward his face. With my thumb, I dotted a sticky stamp of it on his upper lip. When I came away, he smiled and in the most subtle quick dart of his tongue, mischievously licked the filling off.” In your mind you vehemently cursed standing desk. You were aching to sit down, so you leaned both you palms on the edge and stretched your tense shoulders.

“And then?” Bucky asked.

“The man said 'I've missed you Deann'. Dorothy Anne, Deann, was my grandmother.”

Bucky's face was sober now, and although there was heavy emotion there, it was far freer and more expressive now that he had shaken his own thoughts. “The man was your grandfather...”

“...and more to the point,” you interrupted Bucky before he expanded on the thought, as you took a very deep breath though your nose, like someone who knows they're about to go under for the last time, for a long time, “My grandfather Charles knew nothing of my grandmother: not her name, not what she looked like, not that he'd ever been married. On his beside table there was a picture of both of them together, my mother in their arms on the day they took her home, which held absolutely no significance. All memories of her were gone. But in the sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste of apple pie his mind bridged the gap to her name.”

“Why?” Bucky asked with another bullet of fascination.

“I had no idea. Not that day. But on the day of his funeral my mother gave me the answer. Or rather taught me the lesson. On the first date Charles and Deann ever took they sat at Joe's Pie Diner...right after she finished her work shift as a waitress there." Bucky grimaced, even he seemed to sense the damning implication. "And she was so angry with him for not taking her out on a proper date away from work that when their pie order came, a single piece that she had asked to split, he tried to rally the conversation to warm her icy mood. 'Is apple pie your favorite?' he asked. Deann said "No, Charlie, it's my least favorite of all" and Charles, confused and losing ground, asked “Then why would you order it, beautiful?' And cool as could be she said "so I would not feel as guilty at it going to waste" before she tipped the plate up and smeared it over his entire face.”

This was the first time you would witness James Buchanan Barnes laugh. Not a matchstick laugh that went out in a moment, but a man's guttural laugh that consumed his entire face with wrinkles at the sides of the eyes, curves around his mouth, and a breath-catching smile. A laugh that comes from a man at the fair grounds on a double date with his best friend Steve, in rapt fascination at the prototype of a flying car. It only began to subside when you began to speak again.

“That's what I can offer you Bucky. You have a right to doubt me, but I don't doubt you. Memories are fragile things, so they are not my tool of choice, not exactly. I want to help you attach commands to sensations and feelings. Emotions are nuanced and intense. While the world might think that the Winter Soldier has neither sensation nor feeling, I take it that he has them in abundance, so much so that he keeps them in tight check. And for the memories you seek to regain, I know those mean a great deal to you, if are ever afraid of losing them,” you removed the notebook from under your arm, “then use this. Write a book about you that you'd want to reread.”

Bucky accepted the moleskin across the expanse of desk, but intentionally did not grab it and instead touched your hand, just for a moment. “When do we begin?”

“Now Barnes. I know from personal experience that when I'm old, gray, and can't remember my name,” at this Bucky frowned a bit, “The sensation and joy of pie will make me think of Charles. The first word in your chain of command, the one I used when last we met, is  _Longing, Тоска_. Your assignment for when we meet next is find a more potent word in it's place that resonates with you. Can you handle that?”

“What if there already is a word?”

“Then spit it out, I'm all ears.”

Bucky hesitated then, and instead the words that came were “maybe another time, I'll let you get home. You look like hell.”

Only then did you notice the time. What started at 4:00 now ended at 8:00 PM. You would make good money on Stark overtime if that ever concerned you in the slightest. “Not tonight Barnes. Tonight I have the pleasure of reading a book and sleeping in my office.”

“Why on earth would you do that?”

“Because Bucky, you're correct. I look like hell, and I feel like hell, and chances are if I tried to drive home just now, I'd fall asleep at the wheel. That would be detrimental to everyone on the road.”

“Would you let us take you home then?” Natasha said, she had just arrived at the door to collect Bucky. How she would have known to come so late you would never guess, though it would not be unlikely if the Avengers had your office on a closed server surveillance for safety.

“Under the circumstances, it would be best to take as few risks as possible. You need to travel discretely, and an extra person, an extra stop, any excessive deviation in my daily routine could give you away on the off chance that I'm ever monitored...by someone will ill-intentions.” Natasha gave you a curt nod which confirmed your suspicions that the Avengers had their own surveillance.

Bucky hoped that his face did not convey disappointment or concern. You were so tired, it didn't even register. Natasha's face looked as though she wanted to insist on taking you home if Bucky did not, but what you said made tactical sense. In the end they filed out of your office, past the new gorilla glass partition, when Bucky said the first word that came to mind “DUMBO.”

“What...like the elephant?” Are you kidding me!

“Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, where Steve's apartment was...off Flatbush in Brooklyn when we were growing up.” You smirked. He was kidding, or more accurately teasing you.

“No?” he asked innocently. Bucky's attempt at a joke was quite good, so you went along. Who were you to argue in the face of progress? Humor was unprecedented.

“Then the next time I see you, you need a word for _Rusted_ soldier.”

Natasha was surprised, and the word alone gave Bucky a headache, but with a smile and a nod he complied. As Natasha made to follow Buck, she casually said, “I think that's two glasses of something tall and amber we owe you now.”

Alone in your office, you could finally unwind with Tennyson. “I will not lose another one, not another soldier,” you reaffirm to yourself and bolt the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Next: Part 4 - House Calls  
> Tasked with the mission of rehabilitating Bucky Barnes, no one said it would be easy.  
> And no one said it would be personal. But somehow, someway, things are becoming far too entangled, and when Tony Stark gets involved things invariably become much harder to balance. Therapist, consultant, diplomat, peacekeeper? This job doesn't pay nearly enough.


End file.
